Mother and child

Dora Ohlfsen was born in 1869 in Ballarat, Victoria. At the age of 23 she left Australia to study music in Berlin but abandoned her studies after developing neuritis of the arm. Ohlfsen moved to Russia and then Italy, where in 1902 she began studying with artists of the French Academy, including the medallist Pierre Dautel.

After setting up a studio in Rome, Ohlfsen became known as a sculptor and medallist and within a very few years, was considered one of the world’s most highly regarded sculptors of medallions.

Portrait or fine art medallions are an ancient form of commemorative sculpture which found renewed popularity in the European Renaissance, then again in the late 1800s.